These Designer Notes outline the latest gameplay changes coming with Operation Silent Descent, along with a few updates on areas the team continues to evaluate.
For this release, we're focusing primarily on gameplay balance and overall game feel, with adjustments to Operators, gadgets, destruction, and Ranked matchmaking. We're also providing updates on a few areas the team continues to investigate and improve based on player feedback.
We'll continue monitoring player feedback and gameplay data as we refine the experience and evaluate future improvements.
BALANCING
DEIMOS
Deimos' revolver is his main way to attack his target, but with only 6 rounds the current base reloading speed is slow and very punishing. It's manageable with attachments, but the difference is night and day and too extreme when you're starting off with no attachments.
We are increasing the base reload speed and lowering the attachments' buffs so that the base reload speed meets halfway.
Changes
- .44 Vendetta
- Buffed base reload speed
STUN GRENADE
A lot of players accidentally blind themselves or teammates, part of it is due to the learning curve of touch aiming, but these changes are meant to reduce the odds of self-blinds from other factors.
Reducing the collision size will help reduce the situations where a grenade unexpectedly bounces on a nearby edge. Increasing the detonation delay will give more time to react and look away if a misfire does happen.
Changes
- Adjusted Stuns to reduce self-blinds
- Reduced gadget's collision size to 0.01 (from 0.05)
- Increased detonation delay after bounce to 1s (from 0.6)
BARRICADES
This change was originally an experiment to help newcomers enter the building as Attackers in the hopes that it increases their win rate. However, we did not detect a meaningful change to the Attacker win rate of newcomers. It also created the opposite scenario where players from either team would quickly take down a barricade with no time for newcomers to react. We're keeping the 2-hit modifier on the Hammer Foregrip since it comes at the cost of not improving your recoil.
Change
- Reverted the amount of melee hits required to break barricades to 3 (from 2)
SOFT-WALL DESTRUCTION
Soft walls feel too fragile; with just 6 bullets you can create a large line of sight and still have most of your mag intact.
With these changes players will have to commit to more bullets to create usable holes.
We're planning for more improvements to destruction later.
Change
- Reduced the soft-wall destruction stats
- All ARs:
- Bullets needed to breach changed to 10 (from 6)
- Destruction size reduced
- All SMGs:
- Bullets needed to breach changed to 12 (from 8)
- Destruction size reduced
- All LMGs:
- Bullets needed to breach changed to 10 (from 6-8)
- Destruction size reduced
- AP30:
- Bullets needed to breach changed to 12 (from 8)
- Destruction size reduced
- SMG-11:
- Bullets needed to breach changed to 12 (from 8)
- All ARs:
OTHER FEATURES
RANKED MATCHMAKING
We're introducing Team Size Restrictions in Ranked as part of our ongoing evaluation of matchmaking and competitive fairness.
In Gold, Platinum, and Diamond, players can queue in any party size except four-player groups. This helps reduce situations where solo players are matched with incomplete premade teams, which can create a less consistent team experience. In Master, players will be limited to parties of up to two players.
These changes are intended to support more balanced matches at higher skill levels, where differences in team coordination can have a greater impact on match outcomes. They are also expected to help ease matchmaking constraints in higher ranks, where finding suitable opponents can be more challenging. As with all matchmaking settings, we'll continue monitoring player feedback and match data as we evaluate the overall Ranked experience.
HIT REGISTRATION
Hit registration remains a key area of focus for the team. While recent improvements have helped address some hit registration issues, we know some players still encounter situations where shots don't register as expected.
As part of our ongoing investigation into player reports and gameplay data, we've identified a specific issue related to player positioning that can affect shot registration under certain circumstances during a match. Under specific circumstances, interactions with the environment, such as walls, can create a discrepancy between the position displayed to players and the position used for shot calculations. This can result in shots appearing accurate from the player's perspective while registering slightly off target. We've identified the root cause and are actively preparing a fix as part of our ongoing efforts to improve gameplay consistency.
LATENCY
The team is aware of ongoing player feedback regarding latency and connection quality. Your experiences and reports help us better understand where issues may be occurring, and the team is actively reviewing this information as part of our ongoing efforts to improve the gameplay experience.
120 FPS
Providing more flexibility across a wider range of devices remains an important area of focus for the team. With this update, we've removed the chipset grade requirement for 120 FPS support. Going forward, availability will depend on whether a device's display supports a 120 Hz refresh rate, allowing more players with compatible screens to access higher framerates.
We're also continuing to invest in performance and graphics customization. Additional improvements are already in development to give players more options when tuning their experience, and we'll share more details alongside the next major update.
Changes
- We removed the chipset grade constraint for 120 FPS support.
We'll continue monitoring the impact of these changes and reviewing player feedback throughout Operation Silent Descent. In the meantime, the team is already working on the next season, and we're looking forward to sharing more about some of the improvements currently in development.
